12 Reasons Rejection Hurts So Much

12 Reasons Rejection Hurts So Much

2. Not everyone knows how to give constructive criticism, so sometimes rejection comes off as mean or insensitive.

3. Our books are our babies and nobody messes with our babies.

4. Except the editors who we let rip them apart and put them back together again. They’re fine.

5. But as they’re doing the ripping apart things, we start to feel personally threatened … WHAT DO YOU MEAN MY CHARACTER’S NAME IS STUPID? YOU’RE STUPID!

6. We put way too much of our self-worth into whether or not we succeed.

7. We also just want people to like us.

8. Some of us aren’t taught how to properly handle or respond to rejection. That’s not necessarily our fault.

9. But still, being made to feel like all your hard work wasn’t worth it is neither fun nor easy.

10. We all want to believe we’re good enough to nail this whole writing thing on the first try.

11. We’re constantly given false ideas about what writing and publishing is really like.

12. Rejection is always setting us up for success down the road. We just can’t see that yet.

Meg is the creator of Novelty Revisions, dedicated to helping writers put their ideas into words. She is a staff writer with The Cheat Sheet, a freelance editor and writer, and a 10-time NaNoWriMo winner. Follow Meg on Twitter for tweets about writing, food and nerdy things.

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